Over the last few months, ERDC has presented at numerous conferences, including at Washington Association of Career and Technical Administrators (WACTA), Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), and Community of Innovation (COI). We've also shared our work with a variety of audiences, including Washington public school principals, Wyoming's statewide longitudinal education data system (SLEDS) team, Harvard University's Strategic Data Partnership (SDP), and the Education Opportunity Gap Oversight and Accountability Committee (EOGOAC).
We're grateful to have so many opportunities to talk education research and data with so many engaging groups.
In August...
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The Association for Washington School Principals (AWSP) and Gates Foundation invited senior research scientist Danielle Fumia and senior data governance and operations specialist Natasha Rosenblatt to share publicly available data resources on working with systems and students, including resources on dual credit, high school graduation, and postsecondary experiences and outcomes. They also showed principals how to access and request data from ERDC. The principals asked great questions, pushing ERDC to reflect on our data dashboard organization and documentation.
In September...
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Katie Weaver Randall, Heather McCabe, and Melinda Wengrin (pictured left to right) stand in front of a Harvard Graduate School of Education sign, while participating in the Strategic Data Project. As part of ERDC’s participation in the Department of Education’s Statewide Longitudinal Data System grant program, ERDC director Katie Weaver Randall was invited to the Wyoming Statewide Longitudinal Education Data System (SLEDS) meeting to share Washington’s processes around research agenda development, data request fulfillment, and data governance. Katie learned about the program’s successes and challenges. One key takeaway was that although Wyoming’s SLEDS is under-resourced, it accomplishes a great deal through collaboration, shared vision, and strong leadership.
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Senior data scientist Melinda Wengrin and research scientist Heather McCabe attended the Strategic Data Partnership (SDP) Fall Workshop, where they continued their fellowship work focused on early learning research. Themed ‘Data Work is People Work’, sessions explored communication, collaboration, and data interpretation methods, including communicating with diverse audiences, fostering dialogue, and using data ethically. The workshop also included time for fellowship project planning and management. Melinda and Heather greatly appreciate this professional development opportunity and support through Harvard University.
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The Education Opportunity Gap Oversight and Accountability Committee (EOGOAC) invited senior data governance and operations specialist Kaitlin Throgmorton to present on ERDC’s Postsecondary Data Strategy. She outlined the strategy’s purpose and details and asked for EOGOAC feedback, which included encouraging ERDC to be more proactive in promoting its detailed race and ethnicity data.
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Danielle Fumia facilitated a presentation on the Student Trajectories project to ERDC’s data contributing partners. This project, conducted by the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) and the research and evaluation firm MDRC, uses ERDC data to show the many trajectories students may take following high school graduation.
In October...
- Senior data scientist Liz Dehlbom attended the Washington Association of Career and Technical Administrators (WACTA) conference and co-presented a breakout session on findings from over a decade of student access to, participation in, and outcomes of Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses in Washington. These findings are based on a recent Education Northwest and ERDC longitudinal study about CTE.
- Research scientist Matthew Borda presented at the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) Innovation Day about using course and transcript data to evaluate patterns of transfer credit loss. At this event, Matt refined research questions with practitioners and fellow researchers, explored methodology for quantifying the scope and impact of transfer credit loss, and presented his work to a panel of invited potential funders and research partners for feedback.
- Katie Weaver Randall and senior forecasting and systems manager Tim Norris presented at the Community of Innovation annual convening where they networked with those doing P20W work to learn about privacy enhancing technologies (PETs), other state’s data system modernization efforts, and innovative uses of education data,